Sunday, December 25, 2016

Updates and Happy Holidays!

Hi, everyone! Merry Christmas!

Good god, the past while has been brutal. One of my coworkers at my day job (a foreign exchange student) wrapped up his employment to return home to Poland, necessitating a change in the entire crew's schedule. The day that schedule went into effect, another coworker got sick, forcing me to change my schedule again to cover for her sudden absence. As luck would have it, I got sick myself, but had to press on since we have no replacements at the moment (our next hiring call is in January). I'm managing as best as I can despite the health issues; the show must go on regardless. To top it off, my old Compaq (currently the only fully-set-up internet-capable machine at my place) is effectively dead. To give you an idea of how fickle the machine is in its current state: roll a 20-sided die. If you rolled a 1, the power to the laptop won't suddenly die during boot-up. Keep rolling the die every few minutes as the computer stays on; if you roll anything above a 10, the power suddenly dies. If you were saving a file at that moment, that file is now corrupt, so I hope you have a backup available!

...I'd be tearing my hair out if I hadn't recently shaved my head bald...

Anyway, our publisher has asked us to have Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel at release candidate status for the end of January. Rather than struggle with compatibility issues and figuring out which elements of my programming & graphics environment work on Windows 10 (and constantly test my patience with the Compaq), I dusted off my old-but-reliable Proteva tower so I could dive into my work right away. Unfortunately, this tower is quite old (from 2004), so it doesn't have wi-fi capabilities (and my apartment is completely wireless). In other words, I haven't been able to access the internet on a reliable basis for the past few months. So, as a consequence, I haven't had a means of updating this blog in any semblance of a regular fashion (I've replied to comments here and there via my work's wi-fi connection and my phone; unfortunately, the tiny screen and fickle connection don't lend themselves well to properly preparing a new Developer Diary entry...).

On the positive side, that means I've been devoting the bulk of my time to working on Freudenstachel. I'm happy to say that everything in that department is proceeding quite smoothly, if a little slower than I'd like. Once the game is ready for submission, I'll be preparing a slew of Dev Diary entries to show off the stuff we've accomplished these past few months. Suffice to say, I'm damned proud of our work. I'm also pleased to have fixed some of the issues present in the original game. Naturally, I'll share the full story on that front when my workload allows me to do so.

On behalf of everyone at Darkside Translations, Darksquid Media, Schwer and Schwer Alike, and Active Gaming Media, I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Wonderful Winter Solstice, and a joyous New Year. The year 2017 is going to be big for Rosenkreuzstilette; quite fitting for the 10th anniversary of the original game's release.

I think if WOMI was going to release another RKS, he would have done it by now. I hope this localization goes well enough that he decides to begin work on another chapter. I'd really like to see something similar to Mega Man X armor pieces enter the game or a way to gain new abilities and power the character up.

Welcome!

Where in the world are you? I'm glad you asked! Welcome to Schwer and Schwer Alike, the official English development blog for Rosenkreuzstilette -Blades of the Rose Cross-. "RKS" is a series of indie sidescrollers created by [erka:es] as a loving tribute to old-school gaming. The series caters to the loyal-yet-neglected Megaman fanbase and fills the void created by the cancellation of Megaman Universe and Megaman Legends 3.

Originally a dynamic duo, [erka:es] is now a one-man show run by WOMI, the series' lead artist and character designer. Should you feel so inclined, you can download free trial versions of Rosenkreuzstilette and its sequel, Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel, from the developer's official website. If you like what you see, you can purchase both games, in English, via Steam and Playism .